interview with three community members on 7/29/15
Do you feel like the charter school movement has caused local residents to drift away from the local public schools?
Community Member 2: "The charter schools, they come in and they buy the public schools. And they paint the building, and they put up a new sign, you know, things we have wanted for years. I'm not sorry if the kids are getting learning, but you have to give to all."
If you needed help in the neighborhood, who would you turn to?
- South of South Neighborhood Association
- Local real estate developer
- Stanton Community Partners (a new local non-profit organized by neighborhood parents)
- Churches
- City Councilman
- State Representative
- Ward Leader
On organizing in the neighborhood:
Community Member 1: "This neighborhood, right now, has the capacity to organize like this, about anything."
Community Member 2: "Fifty or sixty years ago, this community organized to say 'no' to the Vine Street Expressway...It was going to run right through this neighborhood, and completely destroy it. The neighborhood organized to resist that, over a long period of time, and they won."
On gentrification:
Community Member 3: The people that don't live here anymore probably don't feel proud of the neighborhood. They got priced out, which is always that dual thing...'Oh look how nice the neighborhood has become,' yeah, but what about all the people that had to leave?"
On recent tax increases:
Community Member 1: My taxes went up six times in the past year....I paid $900 a year in property taxes and now I pay $5,000. I didn't qualify for any of the programs that resist an increase.
Community Member 2: But the tax abatements for new homeowners generated development.
Community Member 1: The development was coming anyway.
Community Member 2: "The charter schools, they come in and they buy the public schools. And they paint the building, and they put up a new sign, you know, things we have wanted for years. I'm not sorry if the kids are getting learning, but you have to give to all."
If you needed help in the neighborhood, who would you turn to?
- South of South Neighborhood Association
- Local real estate developer
- Stanton Community Partners (a new local non-profit organized by neighborhood parents)
- Churches
- City Councilman
- State Representative
- Ward Leader
On organizing in the neighborhood:
Community Member 1: "This neighborhood, right now, has the capacity to organize like this, about anything."
Community Member 2: "Fifty or sixty years ago, this community organized to say 'no' to the Vine Street Expressway...It was going to run right through this neighborhood, and completely destroy it. The neighborhood organized to resist that, over a long period of time, and they won."
On gentrification:
Community Member 3: The people that don't live here anymore probably don't feel proud of the neighborhood. They got priced out, which is always that dual thing...'Oh look how nice the neighborhood has become,' yeah, but what about all the people that had to leave?"
On recent tax increases:
Community Member 1: My taxes went up six times in the past year....I paid $900 a year in property taxes and now I pay $5,000. I didn't qualify for any of the programs that resist an increase.
Community Member 2: But the tax abatements for new homeowners generated development.
Community Member 1: The development was coming anyway.